After the Maelstrom

COLLAPSE OF THE CLASSIC MAYA KINGDOMS AND THE TERMINAL CLASSIC IN WESTERN PETEN

Arthur A. Demurest

He Pasi6n River Valley was perhaps the first region to experience radical changes near the end of the Classic period of Maya civilization. The Petexbatun region (Figure 6.1), including the sites of Dos Pilas, Aguateca, Tamarindito, Arroyo de Piedra, and Seibal, had become engaged in intense internecine warfare in the eighth century (O’Mansky and Dunning, Chapter 5, this volume; Tourtellot and Gonzalez, Chapter 4, this volume). The roots of the intensification of warfare in this region really began with the sixth - and seventh-century wars and campaigns between Tikal and Calakmul for control of the Pasidn River trade route (Demarest and Fahsen 2003). As described in Chapter 5 of this volume, these earlier wars left as their heritage a center at Dos Pilas, supported by the tribute, and compelled economic and ecological circumstances to continue that strategy.

The breakdown of this system began with wars against this predatory tribute state of Dos Pilas during the late seventh century. By the late eighth century Dos Pilas had been defeated, its remnant population besieged, and the region was plagued by intensive warfare (O’Mansky and Dunning, Chapter 5, this volume; Demarest 1996, 1997).

First, these wars may have been between the local dynasties of Tamarindito, Aguateca, Seibal, and the other contenders for dominance of the Petexbatun kingdom. By the end of the eighth century these conflicts had degenerated into what Dunning and Beach have dubbed as a “landscape of fear” (Dunning and Beach 2004). Siege and fortification warfare is evidenced by walls and palisades sur-

6.1 Petexbatun region showing major centers and settlement transects. Courtesy of Vanderbilt University Press.

Rounding remnant epicenters and hilltop refuges throughout the region (O’Mansky and Dunning, Chapter 5, this volume; Demarest et al. 1997; Inomata 1995,1997; Palka 1995, 1997). Although we can still debate the causes of this warfare and other underlying problems, there is no longer any question that in the Petexbatun, and the Lower Pasidn Valley in general, the Classic Maya kingdoms politically collapsed during a period of endemic war.